I have given you
So much.

Still I find with
Every thing I give you,
You give two back

So I have four to give; and
Recieve your eight.
Feeding wealth to feed itself
To feed itself itself.
You taught me
Circle.

You have given me
So much.

Two minutes to midnight.
All my windows open to the gentle
Scents of Summer, and the invation
Of winged insects drawn

Towards the single candle
On my living room glass table.
It's as if a pine stripper is dancing
On my lawn,

All perfume and movements that
Sound like breeze and innocent
Lust.
I want to make love to the outside.

Be inside it. Give something back to
These two magical months between
Winters, and at the same time
Worship; move with tears in my eyes

Within optimal actual love.
I smell green; hear dark blue; look
Into the sunset iris of night time
Posing as evening,

And pull words like aces out of my
Worn poetic sleeves, but this is my
Winter coat, and all I can think of is
Snow creaking like doomed souls under

The heel of Anti-Summer Herself.
Meanwhile, Odin and Buddah swing
From a tree in my garden.
All battle muscle and fat carelessness,

And I look out at them chatting
Like little kids on a playground, about
Everything and nothing, and how that's
All there is.

Their words sing to my ears like the
Up-beat hummingbird pulse
Of a newborn's heart, to a young mother's
Own.

Rain wet pavements are mirrors to
Yellow lights and subtle neon.
Click-clacks of women in a hurry,
Even the taxi drivers are too
Tired to use their horns.

Leaves the size of Samson's hands
Keep dropping around me,
Sticking to the ground
As if glued into the scrapbook
Of autumn.

Somewhere between cold and
Not. Winter and fall.
Morning and night.
Alone in a world full of others
Than me.

Dad spoke of his father today.
I listened with Friday
Beer breath and keen
Ears, as he said:

I hope to God your brother
And you won't remember
Me as a ****
Fool when I'm gone,

Then coughed that gurgle-rasp
That promises significant
Changes in a son's
Life within

Not too distant a
Future.
Those **** cigarettes.
Half a lung gone, surgery

Scar a part of that back
That I remember I thought
Would carry me
Forever.

We never spoke too emotionally.
He does it more and
More, and all I can do is
Prepare,

And to speak such truths as:
Dad. You've impressed our
Friends, charmed our women,
Driven us through snow storms

And late nights
To get us to -or home from- either.
Fed us, chopped wood through
Summers to keep us warm through

Winters.
Taught us languages and carpentry,
History and poetry,
Classical wrestling and chivalry.

You've made us laugh since
Before we knew how to.
I think of you whenever I smell
Sawdust, new guitar strings, and smoke

(Only minutes old, his cough
Was the first sound I reacted to...)
Your memory is safe.
Whenever your time comes

To leave us to the strength of our
Own arms and souls,
Trust that your rest is well earned.
He laughed a little,  

Eyes wet from coughing
And whatever.
I could die content tomorrow,  
Having told him.

Some giants don't fall.
They just lie down.
Not to wither away and die.
But to retire,

The way oak trees,
Mountains, revolutionary ideas
And gods
Retire.

She sleeps, so I treat myself to
Country Music Awards
and breakfast beer.

I know how to open every door
silently.

this is my
home.

I know the creak of every
floorboard,

every
not-to.

Toddler tears, infant despair.
The grown-ups adopt their
Panic, and lose control
Rendering their children
Orphant in the darkness that
Absent adult calmness
Creates.

Short beds, cribs, toys
Scattered around;
Superman bedding and
Uncemented concrete in
Piles where peace once
Played with the
Peaceful.

Take these demolished dreams
And newborn nightmares.
Breathe life back into each
Bombed home.
Rebuild young
Hearts with their
Rubble.

Collapse renders
Tunnel
Cave.

To Tina. Like so much else...


Fresh from ambulance; you're open inside.
Already scheduled for struma surgery,
Now hospitalized with unrelated wounds.
Slight brave smile and whisper *I really thought it was enough
Already...
I agree.

Fresh from surgery, brave but unsuccessful at concealing
Multible stabs with every movement
Yet in charge and control of your own, young life
With the unyielding authority of an assertive lil'-ol'-lady when
Demanding to work as if nothing.

Punctures still healing. The phone call comes.
I go to get you at work.
You wanted to work, but your legs don't work
So Alex and the girls close shop and cover you in a blanket of
Collegial Love.

Closed Due To Death in Family.

You haven't yet had time to feel fatherless,
All there is is shock and distance behind
A mask of masterly crafted concrete cored kevlar.
I carry your sorrow by our side to the taxi.
Slight brave smile and whimper I really thought it was enough
Already...
I agree.

This is a statue to your strength, young woman.
This is to record your struggles and blows so they may be held in
The eyes of contemporary poets and the
Cyberarcheologists of the future.

There's something behind your smile; bigger and braver and stronger
Than any man's testosteral ego.

It makes life.
It is a wing over everything.

So I sit back in my freshly painted
Living room.

Neon yellow just didn't do it any  
More. That colour blind landlord

Might actually have cost me a
**** fine relationship.

I'm painting over few, ugly fights,
Intense passion, selfless love alike.

White. It's a Gandalf-like rebirth,
This coming back to myself.

I sit smiling in my freshly painted
Living room. Just some man

Waiting to be asked why he's
Grinning like that.

I've painted every wall of my home
The colour of canvas.

She's having a bad day
The way only women do.
I pile all our pillows in the
Wall corner of our bed.
Carry her into it,
Cover her with both
Our duvets.
Comfort womb.

I am blessed to be a
Man of emotion and
Action.

Heart on my sleeve at
All times; I have never
Concealed a weapon.

Eyes of gods upon my
Every move.

I have nothing to hide. Such
Sweet freedom to

Stand for your every sin and
Uncencored secret.  

Back straight, and perfectly
Human.

On the rough handrail
Leading up to the barracks-
Where the guys eat lunch

There's a growing gap in the
2x4 -from them carving
Themselves toothpicks.

Everything has potential
For something else
Within.

Sweet irony
I hurt myself
Daily
Building.

I do believe my days withing these
Concrete ashram walls are
Coming to an end.

It might be a slow ending, but
It'll be a good one.
It began the day I saw the

Beautiful truth behind the ugly
Mask of everyday insignificance.
Beauty and meaning;

Soft hand in a mild one.
Water strength.
Cement frailty.

Thoughts are like air; find their
Way from A to another
A.

Looking at my friend fitting
A door, cursing at the promise of
Adjustments,

Or enjoying the way the Project Manager
Leaves us never knowing whether
He's joking or not with a face

As cold as his project's foundations.
I fall in love with Life every day.
Even when I hate it.

I've learned that I never stop learning.
I'll be a slightly different man tomorrow,
Yet still myself.

Always still myself.
There is wisdom in flexibility; the
Holding on to nothing,

Even ones definition of oneself.
I was a construction worker.
Now, I'm a

Construction worker.
I take comfort in the fact
That the only comfort I'll

Ever really need, is the
One I give
Myself.

Slivers of crimson sun pierce through
clouds that try but can't
hold back a single ray with the
illusionary shields of
themselves.

some bounce off the oil rainbow
puddles by the containers.
rust forcing its way through
flakes of green paint that

surrenders its grip on the metal
with every clank, thud, scrape and
unloving move by machine
operators and passers by with
tool belts and shouldered
sharpness.

beaten. broken. filled to the rim
with worthlessness.
I'm glad I'm not a container.

anymore.

She is as prescious to me as
The containment of
Newborn blood
To a parent.

I now know
Why little girls crying
Into teddies say they're
Dying.
Now I know that none of
My songs of heart-

Break were real. I had
No idea.
None.

It's like holding your breath
When you know that that car is
Not going to
Stop.

It's the chill down your neck when
You learn that somebody
Just like you
Passed away. Suddenly.

It's the feeling of knowing you're
Losing your grip on the roof of
A burning
Skyscraper. Air.

A soldier, a landmine.
Looking down to see
That your body
Is broken.
Broken.

I now know why country music
Is so close to God at all times.
Why amputees grieve over
Lost limbs.
Why girls cry and boys drink.

It's going to bed, certain that  
The sun will not
Rise in the morning.

Soft ****.
Cracked
Concrete. Little
Teacher.

I love my country side home.
firewood heat fighting the
gusts of winter wind
breaking through
timber
walls creaking with
the outside wanting
in.

still, the absence of your perfume,
freshly showered hair and
skin, smells like the emptiness I'd
feel alone, deep in the
bowels of
an enemy alien spacecraft
heading
home.

I want to use smaller and simpler  
Words, until my poems are those of
Infants drawing stick figures
On gallery walls.

Haikus like commas;  
Periods of teeniest tiniest
Truths.

I name this
School of
Poetry
Crayon.

Only gods create.

All of you
That do,
Are.

Yes.
I watch you
On the pillow; your hair is a
Holy halo gilded by the
Goddess of
Gold
Herself.
Your mouth open in
Innocent oblivion.
I watch you sleep
So far from
Feeling the
Least bit
Creepy.
You make sleep beautiful.  
Angelic is your
Default.
Baby.

Cover your nerves.
Stop picking at scars to
Make them wounds again,

Healing is the super in
Superficial.
Dry your tears when looking

Back; you'll see yesterday more
Clearly.
Bitterness is darkness to

The blind, grenade shrapnel
In the body of a brave one now
Fallen.

Stand up and smile at the light;
There are many enough who bask in
The blackness of their history.  

You've fought.
Bled.
Cried rainstorms and tidal waves,

Run your hands across the view of Heaven
From the bellies of Hell shivering.
It takes courage to fall,

Grace to fly.
So fly.
It's as easy as trying.

Viperid rope of venom
Uncoiling from
Itself

Pit Adder opens
Up to the night
As if mouthing her name
To it

Shape of a murderer
Posing with two

Needles

I wish I was there with you,  
Watching the ocean break its green
On white Australian rock.

I wish I was there with you,
Seeing a thunder storm form,  
Knowing the only shelter we had

Was our rental car parked
On an Arizonan desert roadside,  
As we opened our bottles and prepared

For the night.
I wish that was your hand in mine,  
As we counted crows landing on

Stonehenge. That that was you
I shared a snow cave with
In the deadly sub-zeros of the Finnmark

Plains. I wish that was you with me.
Even going for walks here, under the
Northern Lights on a January night,

Both dimmed with dad's home brew and
What not, content with the fact
That we'd wish

We were there with
Each other, if with
Anyone else.

This heart has been
The smallest boy in the
Schoolyard.

Picked on, punched.
Called names, pointed at
With raw laughter of the

Cruel, cruel kind.
Grew skin as solid as its
Ability to draw

Lines, and stand for them.
I will not accept.
Sometimes pulse

Is the heart
Beating
Back.

I see tears before me.
Raindrops on a
Window.
Flowers
Drowning.

In time she'll stop looking back
With bitterness at all the
Boys that ate the frosting and
Ignored the layers of cake;
Substance and endless surprises.

The Cumaean Sibyl was the priestess presiding over the Apollonian oracle at Cumae, a Greek colony located near Naples, Italy. The word sibyl comes (via Latin) from the ancient Greek word sibylla, meaning prophetess. (Wikipedia)


Songs of prophecy on oaken leaves
Unread; unclaimed; unrequested
Fly from out either of the many entrances
To her cave chambers.

She doesn't mind. Poet or prophet, the
Wind has hands greater than human;  
Words without willing ears wrestle away
Without struggle.

Only they and the wind see the beauty
Of it. She? She doesn't mind.
Guide to the Underworld, she has greater
Things to meditate on than

The Infants of the Universe
In their insignificant sandboxes.
Here; more poetry. Come who may,
To read.*

Who may.
Apollo's twisted payment for her
Pleasures: As many years of life as grains
Of sand in her hand.

But she forgot to ask for youth.
After a thousand years, only her voice is
Left, whispering: Children, all will
Be well. It already is.

It already is.

Home alone
I play Dinner
Dinosaur.
Growl through dead
Poultry in
Sauce.
Men; perpetual
Boys.

I'm not cold.
I've learned; you'll
Live. It's just pain.
Let it hurt
Itself out.

Our problems may tower
Above us, peaks the size
Of hopelessness casting
Shadows as dark as
Our deepest despairs,

But the view from the
Bottom of this valley we're
In lies about the hight of
The actual mountain.
And ****, that sky is blue.

**** you, she says
Smiling between sobs.
You made me stop
Crying.

I love things you dislike about
yourself.
you are more beautiful to me
now than ever.

I watch your details.
discover something new about
your laugh daily.

angles, lighting, a line revealed,
a curve.

collecting every little imperfection,
seeing their whole as

perfection.

your voice soothes me.
your touch rebuilds my
confidence.

any movement you make now,
is dance.

Colder inside this house
Than in the evening sun outside.
I suppose old buildings
Breathe, like all
Living things do.

Aloneness. Never lonely.
Why was I meant for
Solitude? The despair it
Provokes within those who
Wish to

Connect is as much my
Burden as theirs.
To belong to and own.
Spacelessness. Sharing
My whole self. No.

I wish them more warmth
Than anyone will ever find
With me,
Yet I hear the voices
Of mothers shielding

Daughterhearts with double
Edged shields;
Don't be afraid
Child. It's only the
Devil.

I suppose all I'll
Ever need is another odd
Soul like mine, waving from
Inside another freezing, distant
Dwelling.

My hands are winters.
My chest is a cave so cold
My tears well up
Like mounds of
Snowflakes, and fly.

Having tempered myself beyond
My limits, I withdraw to default;
The arctic within; home. Your
Fire is blinding. I only have
Ice for you.

These are Days of Wonder.
Everyday magic
World shrunk
To seconds across.

Days of Wonder, these are
The unimaginable futures of
Some past gone.

Leaving little pieces of ourselves
Within each machine
We build to lighten our little
Loads.

These are Days of Wonder; I
Wonder how on Earth
I'll name the days to come.
They will be longer and
Brighter and
Warmer than
Ever.

Ours might be the last generation
That cared to fix broken things.

Lifelong love is proof of the
Power of will to beat a dead

Horse until it stands up and
Keeps walking.

"These are just too him," she said
And put her father's boots
Aside for me.
A size too big, but just my style.
Cried silently inside; she'd shed tears
Enough by now.
I thanked her in a whisper.
-
"How did your doctor's go?" she says.  
I look down at my new
Boots; "not well."
"Too thick or thin?" she asks, the
Blood in question ringing in my
Ears in blushed embarassment.
"Too thin," I say, knowing too well
What whisky does to anyone's.
She kindly mothers me in whispers.

"I thank each day your life was saved
By surgeons and Warfarin. But
Just for me -look how it went
With him whose boots
You're wearing."

Buried a good friend yesterday.
A nice spot; high on the hill
With a view to the Trysil mountain.

His son, my best friend, as collected
As ever, watched the casket lowered into
Homeground, to merge

Over time into the matter of his
Ancestors and fallen friends.
Before the fog cleared and the

Mourners parted, we laughed again.
The way he would have wanted
Us to.

After the four hour drive to my woman's
Appartment, I was met with red wine
And a hug.

The flames from her fireplace dancing
On the leaves -yellow with autumn-
Of a tree nearby.

She sat in a t-shirt uncold, and as my
Shoulders finally lowered, I shivered.
Wrapping me in two fur blankets

And topping my glass off, she changed
The music from metal to Enya; louder
Than considerate to the neighbours,

But who cares? It had been one hell
Of a day, and I'd spent myself
Again.

Spent myself on sympathy and sorrow,
And had nothing left. Nothing
But her,

And a part of me cried like an old man
Who hadn't been able to ever
Before.

I was dead ready for her bed, but
Something... something warm, real, and
Very, very important

Kept my eyes open. How any sensation
In a human soul can blend with such
As comfort, and form contentment.

In the woods outside my home town
Mushrooms grow in clusters shaped as dead vikings.

The soil rich; thick -dense- with history.
Lean your face on the ground. Feel the warmth

Of blade-based battles on forest grounds now buried
Under centuries of rot, moss and everyday oblivion.

Rust-warped swords pulled from deflated tractor tires
By angry farmers' hands so far from unlikely

Related to those who -fifty or more generations ago-
Forged the ancient nuisance.

I think I want to get old
Alone. Learn how to grow
Strands of white in
Grey.

Deaf to a silence as
Complete as any ever. I'll
Have longs since
Unlearned

To talk. I'd like to go like
That -still in the rocking chair.
Or find myself locked in the dark
Boot of a car, with a shovel and

Every last thank you prayed;  
Hearing, from the sound of
The gravel, that I'll rest in home-
Ground soil. Both feet in leather.

This to inform that all of Your
Troubles and worries
Will be handled by
Yours
Truly today.

They will not be of any
Concern to You whatsoever.
Consider this a reward for
Enduring the hardships of
Lesser
And greater nature

That have occupied Your
Mind as of lately.
Today will be Your day off.
Please trust that solutions to
Every
Issue shall present themselves

Under our most competent
Supervision.
If You succeed at relaxing Your
Heart and mind towards
Surrender
And ease to a

Satisfactory degree, the relief
Mentioned above will also be
In effect for tomorrow.
Lastly, we insist that You
Re-read
This notice upon awakening

Tomorrow morning.
All is under control. It is
-If one wishes it to be-
An entirely recreational
Universe.
With unconditonal love,


-C.E.O.,
Department of Human
Affairs,
The Universe.

I guess you're still
Reading by now.

Your voice (that you try not to hear
While you're reading to

Yourself) would lull me to
Sleep if I heard it as

Closely as
You do.

I'm doing much better now.
Smile more.

I can walk by a radio playing
Slow music without

Speeding up. "...I wish nothing
But the best

For you..." Still, perhaps weekly, 
My thoughts touch upon that

Tiny, little loveborn mistake
We made; how we cried together

Over the decision we came to, and
I sit down behind a corner with

My head in my hands and regret
That we -back then- decided not

To keep
It.

You visit me at work.
I kiss you hello without
My workwear staining your

Outfit. You put on hardhat
And steel tipped boots
And follow through

Corridors of neatly demolished
Offices prepared for
Rebuilding.

This is my life during the
Everydays. These rough walls
Are my home away from our

Homes. Now you have a face
To the name of my Work.
I think of us. How

Demolition hurts. How
The clean up is hard, ***** labour.
We have a few ghosts left from

Previous days. Here, take gloves
And a shovel. I'll help you carry.
Then I'll help you rebuild.

"I know it's back. I can feel it;
The pressure behind the eyes..."*

He's sixty. Missing front teeth
Make his grins cartoonish

And contageous. Some days
Colleague, others

Father.
Now, hammer-steel

Eyes well up. Hands like
Shovels pretend to scratch the

Bridge of his nose.
Devil Cancer. Ugly, old *******.

When he passes on, Valhalla
Awaits.

Don't tell me there's no battle
In this.